


The Choices That We Make

by WriteDreamLie



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, I'm not good with gore myself, May get worse later on, Musical Inspiration: Repo! the Genetic Opera, Will I ever stop writing musical fics?, butterfly bog, haven't decided yet, minor gore, not too graphic, probably not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10690071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteDreamLie/pseuds/WriteDreamLie
Summary: When an epidemic causes fatal organ failures across the globe, people begin to die in droves. A company called GeneCo comes to save the day with high-quality replacement organs... but at an equally crippling cost."Years ago, we all fell into debt. And until our debts are clear, we will live in fear..."Marianne is the daughter of the city's GeneCo representative, the most powerful man around. He's also an overly-protective father, not allowing either of his daughters the luxury of even a single surgery in their lives. But Marianne has found her own way to have fun, and the danger is just an added bonus...Bog has been training for years, gunning for the position of RepoMan so he can finally earn enough money to get his mother out of debt. But it's harder than it looks to get a job repossessing organs, and when his teacher leaves town, he's got to figure it out on his own...





	The Choices That We Make

“Mum, you can't go back out again...”

Griselda smiled wide to hide a yawn. “It's just for a few hours. I'll be home before you know it.”

The smile didn't seem to convince her son, who stood leaning on the wall between their small kitchen and his bedroom, arms crossed over his chest. The angle took a few inches off his significant height, but took none of the criticism out of his bright blue eyes.

_Those eyes used to shine with happiness,_ Griselda thought sadly, _not suspicion._

“It's just one extra shift, hun,” she said with a shrug.

“You only slept for four hours,” he replied. “That's not enough. You need more rest.”

Griselda lifted a hand to make a dismissive motion, but let it fall again when she realized it was shaking quite noticeably. He was right: she was tired as all hell. She did need sleep.

But she needed the money more.

She looked up to meet her son's eyes again and found instead that he was sizing her up, likely to come up with some specific reason to encourage her back to sleep. He had his pick of reasons: her frizzy, un-brushed red hair, the huge shadowy bags under her dark eyes, the tired stoop that took precious inches off her own 5'5” height, her damn hands that _would not stop shaking_...

He finally pushed himself off the wall, arms falling to his sides, and took a step towards her with a look of utter determination. Brows came together under a mess of black hair, and a frown set in so deep it dug grooves into his cheeks. It was a look she knew well: he'd inherited it from his father.

Normally she would have stuck around to say so. Today, she grabbed up her ratty purse, blew him a kiss, and rushed out the door before he had a chance to stop her.

Safely outside her front door, she paused for a moment. Sometimes Bog would pull the door back open and try to get her to come back inside, even as she walked down the street. Maybe if he did it today, she'd listen. She was awfully tired.

But he didn't. She heard shuffling from inside that indicated he'd gotten closer to the door, then stomping that told her he'd resigned himself to letting her go and gone back to his room.

“Love you!” she called back through the door. No answer.

Griselda shuffled off the porch and into the street. It was dark here, but she could see the distant shine of street lights a few blocks away where the bulbs weren't quite broken yet.

On her way down the darkened street, she heard a truck go by, proclaiming to all the world that buying Zydrate from unlicensed sources was illegal.

She shuddered. Never again would she go near that stuff; her own single surgery all those years ago had been more than enough. Griselda had been lucky enough to only need two new organs, ones that could be transplanted at once.

But she knew people who got it done several times, on purpose. For fun, even. She couldn't imagine what could be going through their minds when they did this.

And, more importantly, she didn't _want_ to imagine what kind of debt they were in. A few of them were only making as much as she was, Griselda knew. To her, these people were literally throwing their lives away.

Never mind that their city hadn't had a RepoMan for over a month. GeneCo would eventually notice that one of its urban outliers was skimping on payments and would send them a new one.

And Griselda would not be caught with a missing payment when that happed. She couldn't. There was simply too much at stake.

She reached the lit part of the road. Her eyes immediately went to the pavement to avoid the gazes of passerby, half of which were strung out on Zydrate and likely desperate for more.

Griselda said a silent prayer that Bog was back in bed, sound asleep and dreaming of something sweeter than the dirty, blue-tinged world they had to survive in.

Bog was not in bed.

He was actually _under_ his bed, tugging violently on the strap of a brown canvas bag. He'd overfilled it again, and now it was wedged between the bottom of his bed and the hard wood floor.

After a few more fruitless tugs, he released the strap and reached for the zipper at the top of the bag instead. With a little wiggling, the teeth separated, and Bog was able to pull a few of the books out.

He had to tug them out of their wedged state carefully, lest the pages tear away from what was left of the bindings. It took some doing, but eventually Bog was able to free the bag and the rest of its contents from under the bed.

The books were a variety of sizes and shapes, and not a one of them still had its cover. Some of the newer textbooks had managed to hold onto their thick cardboard spines, indicating that they'd been hardcovers once.

A few were missing entire sections: cover pages, copyright pages, dedication pages, and tables of contents that had disappeared long before Bog got his hands on them.

But that was okay, because the bulk of the books were still intact. And while the piles of medical texts were from a range of different years, most had recent enough information that they could still be of use.

If his mother was going to be out for a few more hours tonight, he was going to make the most of it. He doubted if his professor would be home just then, but there was always a chance.

Besides, he needed every extra moment of instruction he could get. GeneCo was likely to send a new RepoMan any day now, and then he'd have no chance of getting the job himself.

Cutting people up wasn’t necessarily the job he wanted. Cutting into cadavers with his professor was disgusting enough, to be honest. But he and his mother needed the money.

Besides, _anything_ was better than being cooped up alone in this house until his mother or Sunny got off of work. Once upon a time, Bog had thought his mother's insistence that he not leave the house unescorted was a great idea; it was spooky out there after all.

But he'd grown up. Way up. Taller than both his mother and his best friend, and he'd certainly gained his father's intimidating looks. A long nose, sharp jaw, and set of bright blue eyes that could glare right through a person served him well. Better than a short young man with dark freckled skin and a baby face or an even shorter woman that was always trying to hold his hand, anyway.

Really, he was better off alone.

He wiggled the fragile books back into the bag and carefully zipped it closed over the bent pages. Then he slipped the strap of his bag over his shoulder, stomped heavily over to his window, and thrust it open.

The slightest breeze blew through the opening. It was a cool night. Bog thought back to his mother; she hadn’t been wearing a jacket when she left. He would have to remember to nag her about it when she got home.

Not that he had any room to talk. He swung one leg over the windowsill and ducked outside. Sparing a glance down the narrow alleyway toward the front of the house, Bog shifted his weight slowly until his foot hit the cracked pavement.

He pulled the bag carefully over the windowsill until its weight was also outside, then shifted his other leg to the ground.

He was quiet by practice, but Bog still stood unmoving for several seconds. There were windows in the alley above him that were rarely used—that he knew of anyway. Anyone could have seen or heard, and Griselda knew everyone around here. She would know sooner or later.

But when no other movement indicated that he’d been found out, Bog shuffled farther back into the alley, away from the main road and the front of the house, and nearer to his professor’s home.

“Miss Gris, you’re not back already?”

Sunny looked Griselda up and down, ready to point her straight back home, and got a deep motherly glare in return.

“You boys,” she sighed. She dropped her purse and put on her apron.

“Look, ah,” Sunny started again, “not to tell you what to do or anything, but, um, you didn’t need to come back so soon…”

Griselda finished tying the ratty brown cloth over her torso and turned to Sunny with a much less exasperated, if no less motherly, look.

“I know, the money,” he conceded. He shrugged his own ratty apron off and hung it on the wall for the next person. “Want me to check on Bog for you then?”

“I’d appreciate it.” Griselda slumped for just a moment, then took a deep breath, straightened up, and smiled wide. “I’m sure he’d enjoy the company.”

Sunny offered a half smile in return. “Sure thing Miss Gris. See you in a few hours?”

To her credit, the smile only slipped a little. “Yep, be home soon. Don’t wait up!”

And with that, she turned and pushed through the heavy door into the bakery.

Sunny stood there watching the door flap back and forth until it finally caught and stopped.

He worried for Griselda sometimes, but he couldn’t blame her. He was guilty himself of picking up extra shifts where he could. They all needed the money after all. They were all in debt.

In fact, Griselda was the only reason Sunny wasn’t in even _more_ debt. She’d been the one to find him on the street one day, his own mother having passed on without his noticing. He’d been too strung out on Z himself, at only age 13.

She took him home, cleaned him up, got him off the stuff. And though she’d been more than a mother to him, practically raised him alongside her own son, he’d insisted on moving out into his own place as soon as he could afford it.

He didn’t want to be more of a burden on her than he’d already been. She had her own things to worry about after all.

With one last withering glance at the dirty aprons on the wall, Sunny shuffled his way out the back door and into the darkness.

It wasn’t quite morning yet, maybe near midnight. Sunny doubted if Bog was even still awake. He had a habit of sleeping hard and fast when his mom was out working. Sometimes he even headed to bed when Sunny was still hanging around, suddenly too tired to even bother being social.

Which meant, Sunny figured, he had a little bit of time. Time enough to take the long way home through City Central.

He flipped up his shirt collar and turned toward the distant bright lights.

The illumination of City Central could be seen from blocks away. This close to it, the streets were still in grids, as opposed to the broken twists the roads became farther out. The city had been built from the inside out, and it showed: by the time houses like Sunny’s began appearing, the streets were a veritable labyrinth of curves that went on for miles but never seemed to circle back to each other.

But it was a straight shot from work to the Center, and Sunny took the detour whenever he could.

The world was dark, even in daytime. He needed the light.

And there was nothing brighter than _her._

It wasn’t just that her face was shown in glaring LED’s on a huge screen; Dawn Del’Estate carried the sun in her smile. Even the darkest of city streets could be lit up by her mere presence.

Not that she got out much. Poor girl had a weak heart, though her father apparently refused to have it replaced. What kind of monster would refuse their little girl a heart transplant treatment he could definitely afford?

_She can have mine,_ Sunny thought.

Her illness didn’t stop her from gesturing enthusiastically as she explained to the camera why Zydrate should only be bought from legal sources.

Her own eyes were a much prettier blue than the dangerous drug, Sunny noticed. They were paler, softer, and more like the sky he could see sometimes through the city smog. Her short, blonde hair shined like the sun. She was the embodiment of daytime, and Sunny would have given almost anything to bask in her sunlight forever.

“Heeey there,” came a scratchy drawl to his right.

Sunny instinctively pulled his collar up higher, but it was too late; the junkie already had her bloodshot eyes trained on him.

Before he could move away, the woman wobbled over to him and rested a bone-thin hand on his shoulder. Unfortunately for her, Sunny was rather short, so she nearly lost her balance leaning too far down and had to readjust.

“Got a spare hit, friend?” she demanded with a voice like gravel.

Sunny dropped the defensive façade and slumped down a few more inches; the woman stumbled again, but managed to stay upright.

“Nah, bud.” He rubbed both hands over his face and looked up at the junkie, squinting his eyes as if the lights hurt them. “They got shit for dealers ‘round here. Check out farther back.”

He purposely pointed away from his home, unsure if there were really any Z dealers back that way. The woman, clearly desperate for a hit, took the bait anyway. She hobbled off without a backward glance.

Sunny decided it was time to head out before any other addicts came looking for a “friend.” He spared one last look up at Dawn’s smiling face; for a second, he even imagined she was smiling right at him.

Then he turned away, trained his eyes on the pavement ahead, and started home.

 

“I will not have this, young lady!” Dagda yelled, slamming his fists on the hardwood desk.

“Well I won’t have this, old man!” Marianne yelled back. She threw her arms to the side, gesturing to the Kevlar-clad blond in the doorway.

“Now, buttercup,” the younger man drawled in an accent that made Marianne imagine poisoned honey, “you shouldn’t speak to your father that way.”

Marianne dropped her arms and stomped one heavily-booted foot. “You shouldn’t speak to _me. Ever!”_

“Marianne, Roland is right.” Dagda stood, his round-ish figure becoming more imposing by the second. “There has been entirely too much of this disrespect, and I will not tolerate it any longer! Roland?”

Roland smiled at Dagda with a mouth full of teeth that were almost _too_ white. “Yes, sir?”

“Take my daughter to her room and be sure she doesn’t leave it for the remainder of the night.”

“Fuck no!” Marianne stomped again. Roland took a step towards her and she slid easily into a fighting stance. “Over my dead body.”

“Um,” came a barely audible voice.

Marianne risked taking her eyes off Roland to look back at her little sister. Dawn was sitting calmly on the couch behind her, her hands folded in her lap. The only indication of worry lay in her eyes, wide and shifting quickly between Marianne, Dagda, and Roland.

Instantly, the fight went out of Marianne. She couldn’t upset her sister like this; her heart wouldn't be able to take it.

Marianne let her arms relax to her sides before stepping over to her sister. Dawn looked up at her with those wide doe eyes and took one of Marianne’s hands in both of her own.

Dawn’s hands were cool; her heart couldn’t always get enough blood to her extremities to keep them warm. Marianne set her free hand on top of her sister’s to warm them up a bit.

Dawn’s mouth drew into a tight line, as if she didn’t have the words, or had them and didn’t want to say them just then. But Marianne understood what she was getting at. Years of silent conversations had taught her to read her sister’s expressions pretty clearly.

With one last squeeze, Marianne slipped her hands free and turned back to Roland.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said through gritted teeth.

Roland pushed the door open and gestured for her to go first. His armor gleamed dangerously, his smile gleamed ominously, and his hair gleamed infuriatingly.

He was too shiny, she thought, for such a dark place.

She stomped past him, not looking at her father as she went, and headed down the long hallway. Her room was on the floor above, so she made a bee-line for the stairs.

Heavy footsteps caught up to her quickly, and she instinctively stopped on the bottom step and raised a fist at her “guardian.” Just as she’d assumed, he was mere inches behind her, fingers splayed as if preparing to grasp something he shouldn’t.

“Do. Not. Touch me.” She hissed each word through her teeth.

Roland raised his hands in mock surrender. His smile never faltered.

Marianne resumed her stomping, all the way up the stairs and down the upper hallway. When she reached her bedroom, she swung the door open and waited for Roland to approach. She watched as he sauntered forward, and when he was less than a foot away and still coming, she slammed the door and turned the lock.

He tried the door anyway, jiggling the handle several times before sighing dramatically.

“Now, buttercup…”

Marianne stepped back, as if his voice could physically pierce the door and she didn’t want to get stabbed herself.

“You don’t need to be in here,” she called back to him. “You can guard me from outside.”

“But Marianne, how can I truly protect you if I can’t see you?” There was a thump that probably meant he was leaning on the door. His voice got lower, more suggestive. “Who knows _what_ you could be doing in there…”

Marianne shivered.

“Nothing that has to do with you, you piece of shit.” She heard a chuckle on the other side of the door. Before Roland could launch into another spiel, Marianne spun on her heel and slammed her hand onto her music player.

Bass notes flowed through the over-sized speakers in either corner of her room, effectively drowning out any other sounds. For a moment, Marianne imagined she could hear an off-tempo beat that may have been banging on her door, but it stopped soon enough.

She turned the music down just enough that she could hear herself think again. She could not spend the night cooped up in here. Between the fight with her father, and Roland now stationed right outside her bedroom, Marianne was just too on edge. There wasn’t a chance of her sleeping tonight.

_I’ll just have to go out_ , she thought. _But first…_

Marianne checked herself out in her vanity mirror, which vibrated slightly with every deep bass note. Her brown hair was mussed and stuck out on one side, her make-up was smudged slightly from when she'd rubbed at her face in frustration. That wouldn't do.

She rubbed her palms into her eyes, then out and over her face. She ran her fingers through her hair haphazardly. When she looked again, it seemed she'd become a windswept raccoon. _Perfect._

Another swipe of a hand through her hair, and Marianne looked well and truly screwed up. Which meant she'd fit in perfectly with the other Z addicts out on the streets.

She marched across the room, past the barred floor-to-ceiling window. Those bars had been installed soon after her father had discovered her climbing out and away one night. It was a shame. She missed those sheets.

In the final, speaker-less corner of the room was a bookshelf bolted to the stone wall. Or, rather, it _looked_ bolted to the wall.

Long before Marianne had begun sneaking out, she'd found the passage behind the bookcase. She had actually been practicing climbing up the shelves when she felt it give way slightly. Her 10-year-old self had seen the hole broken in the otherwise clean surface and knew she couldn't tell anyone.

But it hadn't been her escape hatch until the window was blocked years later. And it had taken several months and a strong case of withdrawal to get her to actually follow the tight path through her own walls.

By now, shimmying behind the bookcase and sliding it back into place behind her was second nature. Even the dark didn’t bother her anymore; she knew what was in this tunnel and what wasn’t. And she was far more dangerous than anything else that showed up in there.

Every inch of stone she crawled through was another inch farther from Roland and another inch closer to freedom. She could feel the cool night air blowing inward from the exit below.

The bass notes didn't quite follow her outside.


End file.
